_ AMERICA’S INTEREST. 
IN WORLD PEACE 


; BY’ 
IRVING FISHER | 


PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN 
YALE UNIVERSITY 





x TH, 75 & WAGNALLS COMPANY | 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 
| 1924 
__#er copy 60 cents; ten copies, $5.00; one hundred 


: s copies, $30.00; one yeopesy copies, $240.00, Cloth edition, 
epnes .) ‘oe copys : 00. 








AMERICA’S INTEREST IN 
WORLD PEACE 


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AMERICA’S INTEREST 
IN WORLD PEACE 


BY 
IRVING ‘FISHER 


PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN 
YALE UNIVERSITY 





FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 
1924 


Copryricut, 1924, sy 
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
{Printed in the United States of America] 
Published, September, 1924. 


Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention 
of the Pan-American Republics and the 
United States, August 11, 1910. 


To tHE Memory 
| OF 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
AND 
WOODROW WILSON 





PREFACE 


This little book is a very brief résumé of my 
“League or War?” with some additional data to 
bring it down to date. Like the larger book, it 
aims at convincing all readers, who are willing to 
be convinced, that America is making a grievous 
mistake in so long delaying her inevitable en- 
trance into the Permanent Court of International 
Justice at The Hague and the League of Nations 
at Geneva. 

What has been delaying our doing these two 
things, which most other countries have done, is 
the unscrupulous propaganda of a small band of 
irreconcilables. One of the most unscrupulous 
parts of this propaganda was the circulation, 
after Theodore Roosevelt’s death, of the untruth 
that he was opposed to the League. For this rea- 
son I have dedicated this book to his memory, as 
well as to the memory of Woodrow Wilson. 


Roosevelt was the first great statesman to pro- 
vil 


PREFACE 


pose what he called “a league of nations for the 
peace of righteousness.” He stood unswervingly 
for that principle to the end of his life. Here 
was one subject at least on which Roosevelt, 
Taft, and Wilson agreed. 

IrvinG FIsHEr. 


Yale University, August, 1924. 


As this book goes to press the wonderful news 
comes that Germany has decided to apply for 
membership in the League of Nations. From 
having once thought that the League might be 
used to enforce the Treaty of Versailles against 
her, she has come to see that the League is the 
one hope of tempering that treaty. This action 
of Germany, following the actual resuscitation 
of Austria through the League, should remove 
the opposition to the League in America from 
German-Americans, just as the dramatic action 
of Ireland in joining the League last year caused 
the opposition of Irish-Americans to collapse. 
Those senators now stand still more discredited 
who, misrepresenting the League, are “blasting 
the hopes” of Ireland and Germany. 

1 

September 24, 1924. 

Vili 


CONTENTS 


RRO ACI rO ei a kong kee un ee 


CHAPTER 


I. America’s IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


Introduction—The Pro-League Trend— 
Political Platforms—Visiting the League 
—Truth Discredits Falsifiers—What Be- 
came of Slavery—America Stands Alone 
—Why We Stand Alone—Politics and 
the League—Partisan or Non-Partisan 
—Controlled by a Small Clique—This 
Clique Not Representative. 


Il. Onuy OnE Way Our 


The Public Confused—The Bok Prize— 
A Court Necessary—A Forum Too—Only 
One Court Available—And Only One 
Forum—Sitting In—The _Isolationists 
Isolated. 


Ill. Wuat tue Recorp SHows 


Introduction—The League Stopped Six 
Wars—Jugoslavia and Albania—The 
Corfu. Incident—The League’s Five 
Methods—The League Made the Court 
Possible—The League Rescued Austria 
—Why Not Germany Too? — The 
League’s Humanitarian Work — The 
League Record as a Whole—What the 
Court Has Done. 


1X 


31 


51 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


IV. Oruer SevrisH REASONS... . 


Our Own Traditions—Theodore Roose. 
velt—William H. Taft—Woodrow Wilson 
—Warren G. Harding—Calvin Coolidge— 
Isolation Out of Date—Our Voice in the 
W orld—Our Stake in Europe’s Trade and 
Debts—Our Interest in Competitive Ar- 
maments—Our Interest in World Peace 
—Conclusions. 


V. Do Reatu Opsections Exist? 


The League Confused with the Treaty of 
Versailles—Would the League Take Our 
Soldiers Abroad?—The Monroe Doctrine 
—The Six British Votes—The Real Op- 
position. 


VI. Our Nationat Duty ... . . . 


In the Name of Humanity—America 
Needed—Our National Pride—What We 
Fought For—The Supreme Sacrifice. 


PAGD 


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AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 












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I 
AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 
Introduction 


This book treats of the most important sub- 
ject before the world to-day, and incomparably 
the most important for America—all the more 
because America has not yet fully realized the 
fact. 

How does it happen that American indiffer- 
ence is now diminishing? For everywhere evi- 
dence is accumulating that the American people 
are growing more and more restive over the 
inaction of their government. 


The Pro-League Trend 
I was recently informed by a gentleman from 
Glen Ridge, New Jersey, that his town had, as 
he expressed it, ‘changed its mind.” Two years 


ago it had been almost unanimously against the 
13 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


League of Nations; yet now, he said, it had 
become almost unanimously in favor of it. The 
change was due to discussion in the Open Forum 
of the town. 

Writing recently in The Atlantic Monthly, 
H. H. Powers, the economist, who in 1920 was 
one of the most powerful opponents of the 
League, and who supplied much of the ammuni- 
tion for the newspaper attacks on it, announced 
his own reversal of attitude, and stated that no 
doubt millions of other Americans had changed 
in the same way. Almost daily I meet people 
who, like Mr. Powers, have changed their minds 
and, like him, have the courage to confess it 
before the public. 

The public is also willing and eager to learn. 
Test votes in audiences of many kinds, often 
“ready-made” audiences such as Rotary and 
Kiwanis Clubs and Labor Unions, invariably 
show, after the facts have been presented, over 
90 per cent. in favor of our joining the League 
with this one interpretative reservation (to quiet 
the fears which have been aroused) that America 
must be the sole judge, in every concrete case, 

14 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


of what her moral responsibilities are under the 
League Covenant. 

The strong resolutions for the League passed 
by a vote of about six thousand out of the seven 
thousand nine hundred students at the Indian- 
apolis Students’ Convention, and supposedly rep- 
resenting the views of a million others, opened 
‘many people’s eyes, as did the strong resolution 
passed by the National Young Women’s Chris- 
tian Association, and the many resolutions of 
clergymen’s conventions, to say nothing of the 
continued and consistent espousal of the League 
by the American Federation of Labor. 


Political Platforms 


The results are showing themselves in politics. 
The Republican platform of 1924 declares for 
entering the World Court—a child of the League 
—tho against our entering the League itself. 
Furthermore, the platform proposes that we 
“continue to cooperate with other nations in 
humanitarian efforts, in accordance with our 
cherished traditions. * * * ,” and adds: ‘‘The 
work of our representatives in dealing with sub- 

15 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


jects of such universal concern as the traffic in 
women and children, the production and distri- 
bution of narcotic drugs, the sale of arms, and 
in matters affecting public health and morals, 
demonstrated that we can effectively do our part 
for humanity and civiiization without forfeiting, 
limiting, or restricting our national freedom of 
action.” Altho the fact is not mentioned, all of: 
this cooperation is, and must continue to be, car- 
ried on through the League of Nations! The 
plank which the League of Nations Non-Partizan 
Association favored stated that we should “con- 
tinue to cooperate with the League of Nations in 
humanitarian efforts.” What got in, as above 
indicated, was that we should “continue to co- 
operate with other nations in humanitarian 
efforts.” The framers of the platform were, of 
course, aware of the fact that only through the 
League can we so “continue.” In fact, Coolidge 
in his acceptance speech boldly says that these 
forms of cooperation are with the League. In 
other words, we are already a back-door member 
of the League, and the Republican party pro- 
poses that we “continue” to be such. 
16 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


The Democratic party goes still further and is 
more explicit: “The Democratic party renews its 
declaration of confidence in the ideals of world 
peace, the League of Nations, and the World 
Court of Justice. * * * There is no substitute 
for the League of Nations. * * *” The plat- 
form then proposes a referendum, after the com- 
ing election, on the question whether America 
shall join the League. This referendum is in- 
tended to rescue the subject from partizan poli- 
tics, and put it before the whole people. It is 
hoped that, in such a referendum, Republicans 
will feel as free as Democrats to vote for entering 
the League. 

So it is clear that the matter is not settled. 
And why has it not been settled? Because great 
questions in history are not usually settled until 
settled right. Wrong and falsehood are pretty 
sure to be exposed in the end. Despite the fact 
that a few irreconcilables can seem to “fool all 
of the people some of the time” and “some of the 
people all of the time,” they can not “fool all 
of the people all of the time.” 


17 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Visiting the League 


Not as long as some of the people can visit 
Geneva! What has changed Mr. Powers’ view 
is what changes the views of the hundreds or 
thousands of Americans who visit the League at 
Geneva every summer, and then go home and 
tell their friends of the contrast between the 
actual League and the caricatures of it fabricated 
by politicians in 1920. 

I was recently told of a party of twenty-five 
tourists, business and professional men, who made 
such a visit to Europe. On the steamer to Europe 
a poll showed that twenty-three of the twenty- 
five were, or thought they were, opposed to 
America’s entering the League. On the return 
voyage, after visiting Geneva, the vote was 
unanimous the other way! 

As I write, I find a report from Darling, the 
famous cartoonist of the Des Moines Register. 
Just returned from Geneva, he said on good 
authority, “Every anti-League newspaper which 
has sent a special correspondent to dig up faults 
of the League has either recalled its man or had 

18 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


the policy of the paper changed by his reports 
within two months.” — 


Truth Discredits Falsifiers 


Thus the contrast between the real League 
and the false portrayal of it in 1919-20 is ever 
obtruding itself in millions of minds. 

No wonder that the New York Times says 
that the “Stars in their courses” fight for the 
League. No wonder that the suspicion is daily 
deepening that certain propagandists in 1920 put 
something over on the American people. Every 
one of their alleged arguments against the League 
has been belied by events. So they are now try- 
ing to prevent the truth from coming out by 
keeping silent, refusing to debate it, and asking 
their organs of publicity to keep silent and refuse 
to report pro-League meetings and speeches. 
When forced to refer to the subject at all, they 
take refuge in the false statement that the issue 
is dead. As the people, slowly but surely, are 
finding out how they were deceived by the little 
band of irreconcilables, they are learning to dis- 
credit these men. Witness the political reverses 

19 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


or checks that have befallen Lodge, Johnson, 
Reed, McCormick, Moses, Shields—half of the 
group—in all cases largely and admittedly 
because of their stand on the League. The 
others have also lost caste. They had been run- 
ning behind their tickets because of their opposi- 
tion to the League, or “hedging,” by supporting 
the Hughes Disarmament Conference and pro- 
posing vaguely to “outlaw war.” 


What Became of Slavery? 

A similar situation was found in this country 
before the Civil War, when the Missouri Com- 
promise, the Dred Scott decision, and the elec- 
tion of Buchanan, were supposed to have “solved” 
the question of slavery, and wiseacres in politics 
gravely informed us that the question of slavery 
was “settled.” Even Presidents of the United 
States tried to make the people think the Slavery 
question was a closed incident. But Slavery 
could not be settled until it was settled right. 


America Stands Alone 
Why is it that the League question has not 
been settled by America as the other countries 
20 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


have settled it? Why has America taken a dif- 
ferent attitude from that of other countries? 
For to-day we find ourselves practically alone in 
the world on this subject. Practically the rest 
of the civilized world has joined both the World 
Court and the League of Nations. Forty-seven 
nations have joined the Court in the three years 
of its existence; fifty-four nations have joined 
the League in the five years of its existence. 
Both Court and League now include four-fifths 
of the population of this world—over a billion 
people! Besides America only unimportant na- 
tions, or nations not yet fully eligible for mem- 
bership, remain outside. To be specific: Af- 
ghanistan, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, 
Germany, Hedjaz, Iceland, Mexico, Russia, 
Tibet, Turkey; these stand with us. Is Uncle 
Sam to be known by the company he keeps? 


Why We Stand Alone 


Why do we thus stand alone? Is it because 
we alone have studied this subject thoroughly 
and dispassionately and reached an adverse 
opinion by solid reasoning, while the fifty-four 

21 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


other nations have made an egregious blunder? 
Or is it because it is they who have considered 
the matter more fully, and with less bias, than 
we? 

The answer is clear. Ninety-nine per cent. of 
our people have not even read the League Cove- 
nant. They have taken their ideas second-hand 
from certain other people, many of them doubt- 
less sincere, while these, in turn, have taken 
theirs second-hand from still others, until, trac- 
ing it all back, we find the caricatures of the 
League emanating from a dozen men in Wash- 
ington. It was these men, few in number, but 
great in influence, whose propaganda “put some- 
thing over” on the American people. 


Politics and the League 


The real explanation of the riddle—the real 
reason why America has come to a different con- 
clusion from nearly all the rest of the world (or 
rather has come to no clear conclusion at all) 
is that politics entered into the question in 
America as it did not enter elsewhere. In Swit- 
zerland the subject was considered apart from 

22 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


politics, in a popular referendum. In America, 
in the election of 1920, it was mixed up with 
every kind of political consideration. Indeed, 
the issue was never squarely drawn between our 
two great political parties. Many voters—per- 
haps millions—following Taft, Root, Hughes, 
Hoover, Strauss, Wickersham, Lowell, and the 
other distinguished “31,” actually thought that, 
by voting the Republican ticket, they were tak- 
ing the shortest path into the League with proper 
reservations. 

It is easy to see why dissension and confusion 
entered. Under the American system, treaties 
can not be made without the advice and consent 
of the Senate; and there is always a conflict 
between the President and the Senate over a 
treaty. The more important the treaty the more 
severe the conflict. It becomes still more severe 
when the Senate and the White House are of 
opposite political faith, and still more so when 
a political campaign is impending, and still more 
so when practically every member of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations is himself person- 
ally ambitious to be the next President of the 

23 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


United States! Under such circumstances, it 
clearly was inevitable that these men should 
think in political terms—‘‘How is this going to 
affect me, my future, and my party?” 


Partizan or Non-Partizan 


It is not necessary, however, to rearouse the 
hard feelings permeating the debates of 1919 and 
1920. Both parties are now specifically pledged 
to joining the Court; both recognize the necessity 
of utilizing the League machinery, one openly 
and fully, the other covertly and partially, and 
one of the two proposes, if elected, to take out 
the partizanship still remaining through a popu- 
lar referendum in which people of all varieties of 
politics may express their individual convictions 
apart from any other question whatsoever. 

Thus, while there remains a real difference 
between the two great parties, that difference is 
far less than it promised to be. What is espe- 
cially gratifying to those of us who have tried 
so hard to get and keep the subject out of poli- 
tics is the practical certainty that whichever 
party wins in the coming election we shall wlt- 

24 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


mately and inevitably join Court and League 
alike. The Hughes plan for joining the Court 
requires our sitting in with the League tempo- 
rarily, for the sole purpose of electing judges to 
the Court. The next step then plainly before us 
will be to sit in permanently, without a vote 
(except for Judges) ; and the next, to obtain the 
full vote as a privilege. These three steps may 
take many years without a referendum as 
against, perhaps, one year if a referendum is 
held. But success is in sight either way. Let us 
pray that a world war does not overtake us first! 


Controlled by a Small Clique 


The fact can not be overlooked, of course, 
that the Republican party has hitherto been con- 
trolled in this matter by the irreconcilables. Its 
pledge in 1920 of an “Association of Nations” 
has not only remained unredeemed, but has been 
abandoned in the 1924 platform. The party has 
failed, so far, to be guided by the repeated rec- 
ommendations of Hughes, Harding, and Coolidge 
to secure membership for the United States in 
the World Court, altho over a year has inter- 

25 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


vened since that proposal was first made. Like- 
wise there are irreconcilable Democrats and half- 
hearted Democrats and disloyal Democrats. 

The obstacle in both cases has been the ir- 
reconcilables, two Democrats, one Independent, 
and the rest Republicans, who, while few in 
numbers, dominate the Committee on Foreign 
Relations. They have indulged in every effort 
to delay and evade. They have offered impos- 
sible substitutes—not only the ‘Association of 
Nations,” but the bizarre Court plans of Len- 
root, Lodge, and Pepper. ‘These impracticable 
plans seemed devised to sidetrack the practicable 
plan of Hughes, Harding, and Coolidge. But 
they have all been repudiated by Mr. Coolidge 
and the Republican platform; so that now, at 
last, the irreconcilables can no longer claim to 
represent a party or the people. 


This Clique Not Representative 


Outside of these groups the Republican party 
still keeps a better standard. In 1918-20 many 
Republican leaders refused to play politics be- 
yond the water’s edge. My friend and former 

26 


AMERICA’S IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION 


colleague at Yale, Chief Justice William Howard 
Taft, more than once stood up on the same plat- 
form with Woodrow Wilson and advocated the 
entry of the United States into the League of 
Nations. Even in the Senate, in spite of every- 
thing, the final vote by 57 to 39 was that we 
should enter the League of Nations, with some 
reservations. That is an important fact which 
some have almost forgotten. They remember 
only that we did not go in. The majority was 
greater than is usually obtained for an ordinary 
bill, tho falling short of the two-thirds majority 
required by the Constitution for ratifying a 
treaty. The cause of the League lacked just 
seven votes. Had there been just seven more 
men in the Senate as magnanimous, public-spir- 
ited, and patriotic as Mr. Taft and Mr. Hughes 
and Mr. Hoover, America would have been in 
the League of Nations to-day; war would be 
outlawed; universal disarmament would be no 
longer only a dream; and reparations and debts 
and balanced budgets and currency stability and 
gigantic standing armies would be problems 
solved or on the way to solution. 
27 


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ONLY ONE WAY OUT 











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II 
ONLY ONE WAY OUT 
The Public Confused 


The worst result of politics entering into the 
question has been to confuse the public mind. 
Instead of having a correct and accurate picture 
of the League, we have had many different pic- 
tures—some grotesque caricatures. 

And with these many different pictures came 
many different alternative projects for main- 
taining peace. Some people want us to enter 
the League as the other nations have entered— 
without reservations; others propound reserva- 
tions of one kind or another; others say: Drop 
the League and create a brand new “Association 
of Nations”; others suggest that we join the 
World Court only; others that we create a new 
world court. Just so long as we continue to dis- 
sipate our energies in these contrary directions, 

31 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


just so long shall we continue to talk instead 
of to act. 


The Bok Prize 


Seeing this confusion, one of our fellow citi- 
zens, Mr. Edward Bok, with great public spirit, 
challenged the ingenuity of America to find the 
way out—not a newfangled plan to make con- 
fusion worse confounded, but a practical plan 
on which we could all agree. He offered the 
prize of $100,000 to the person who could show 
the path to peace. 

Over twenty-two thousand people answered 
this challenge by submitting plans; from among 
these plans the winning one was selected by a 
Committee of Award consisting of high-minded, 
public-spirited men and women, headed by 
Elihu Root. 

The judges did not know the name of the 
winner until after their choice was made. When 
they looked in the envelope containing his name, 
it proved to be that of Charles H. Levermore, 
the man who, for four years past, has written 
the Year Book of the League of Nations. It can 

32 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


scarcely be a coincidence that the best plan was 
that of the best posted man, the man who per- 
haps knows the most on this subject among 
living men in America. 

And yet his plan is not complicated. Like 
most great plans, and most practical plans, it is 
very simple. Boiled down, it amounts merely 
to these two proposals: first, that America should 
join the World Court on the basis outlined by 
Secretary Hughes, advocated by Presidents Har- 
ding and Coolidge, and now endorsed by the 
Republican platform; secondly, as to the League 
of Nations, that, without joining as other na- 
tions have, we be present at its sessions and 
use it as a forum for discussion without a voter’s 
responsibility. In this way we can try it out, 
and later, on the basis of experience, decide 
whether or not we want to follow the example 
of other nations and become a formal member 
of the League. This Bok plan (or Levermore 
plan) has been approved by 88 per cent. of the 
half million who have voted on it. Thus far 
has confusion yielded to common accord, so 
sorely needed in this important matter. 

33 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


A Court Necessary 


I believe that almost any of us, if we could 
forget what we have heard and devote an hour’s 
thought to the subject, would come substantially 
to this very conclusion; that, if America is to 
do anything in cooperation with other nations, 
she must at least do two things—join them in a 
Court and sit in with them in a Forum. To join 
in a Court and sit in at a Forum is to reduce 
our cooperation to its lowest terms. We may 
do much more, but we can not do less and do 
anything worth while. 

The institution called a Court is the supreme 
invention of civilization—the only device which 
works to prevent war when quarrels become acute. 
Without it, civilization could not exist. It has 
made peace possible in ever widening circles. 
When people talk loosely about the impossibility 
of abolishing war, they overlook the fact that 
we already have abolished war. We have abol- 
ished war wherever we have applied the remedy, 
courts. We have abolished war between indi- 

34 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


viduals and between families, between cities, be- 
tween states. All this is the work of the courts. 
Courts have proved that man is not by nature 
a fighting animal. In general he fights only when 
there is no alternative—no court readily avail- 
able. When a dispute becomes acute, the two 
disputants must either fight it out, in which case 
the stronger wins, or else refer it to a third party, 
in which case justice has a chance. That is the 
idea of a Court, to substitute for interested force 
the decision of a disinterested third party, 
thereby giving justice a chance. 

We see, then, that this great principle of 
courts, has displaced war as an institution in 
every field in which it has been applied, that is, 
in every field except the international field. Pri- 
vate war, or duelism, is practically extinct; as 
is blood revenge to settle family feuds. The Jus- 
tice of the Peace has taken their place. So, also, 
eighty-seven disputes between our States have 
been settled by our Supreme Court, without 
which probably our States would more than once 
have been involved in war. 

Once they did get into such a war. For no 

35 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


court works 100 per cent. efficiently; no human 
being or institution does. But our Supreme 
Court certainly works excellently well in settling 
disputes between our States, while between in- 
dividuals and between states, courts have re- 
duced warfare by a large percentage in frequency, 
and by another large percentage in intensity also. 
Practically, then, courts abolish war. 

The history of civilization thus consists prin- 
cipally in the replacement of war by law. His- 
tory is largely the story of the enlargement of 
the peace group—from the family, which was the 
first peace group, to the town, or community, 
which was the next peace group, to the state, 
and to the nation—and each step has been made 
possible by courts. It only remains to apply this 
great principle between nations, just as it has 
been applied between states and smaller groups, 
in order to abolish war as an institution wholly 
and forever. For that purpose a World Court is 
indispensable. 

And now at last we have such a Court, with 
47 adherents, lacking only the United States to 
give it its full measure of prestige. 

36 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


A Forum Too 


Likewise, as to an International Forum, we 
may agree that, if America is to do anything 
toward maintaining world peace, it must be in 
constant conference with other nations. Even 
in private life most of our disputes are settled 
out of court. A court is merely the last resort. 
Long before disputes become so acute as to 
require going to law, we can usually settle them 
out of court, merely by talking them over and 
ironing out the misunderstandings on which they 
are usually founded. For this purpose the na- 
tions need a meeting place such as the League. 
Such a discussion place is useful in many other 
ways than merely to help settle disputes. The 
Council and Assembly of the League are (very 
roughly) analogous to the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the United States, while the 
World Court is analogous to the Supreme Court 
of the United States. It would be almost as 
absurd to try to get along with the World Court 
only and without the Council and Assembly of 
the League as it would be for us to try to get 

37 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


along without Congress and with the Supreme 
Court as our only federal agency. 

So'I believe we may all agree that America 
ought not only to be in a Court with the rest of 
the world, but also to be in a Forum with the 
rest of the world, exactly as the Bok Peace Plan 
proposes. Thus we reach our first conclusion, 
that the least America can do is to join in a 
court and a forum. 

But some objectors may say, “I admit we need 
a court and a forum, but why should these be 
the court at the Hague and the forum at Geneva, 
the League of Nations? Is it not possible to get 
a different court from this Court and a different 
forum from this League of Nations?” 

First, we may make the Yankee reply, by 
asking a question in return: “Why should we?” 
I have yet to see any satisfactory answer to 
that question. 


Only One Court Available 


But a second answer is that we can not, as a 
matter of cold fact, get any substitute! It is im- 
possible now for us to obtain a court in common 

38 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


with the rest of the world unless it be that Court 
which the rest of the world already has in com- 
mon! It is likewise impossible to obtain a forum 
in common with the rest of the world unless it be 
that Forum which the rest of the world already 
has in common! In 1919, when all plans were 
plastic, we might have succeeded in getting some- 
thing else, but now in 1924, when the Court and 
the League are fully “set” and crystallized, it 
is impossible as well as unnecessary. 3 

Think of the situation! Here we have a fully 
organized Court of eleven judges, with 47 nations 
as adherents which have accepted its court 
statute, with judges whose salaries are duly 
arranged for, with nine decisions behind them 
in their three years of experience, and with a big 
docket of business on hand and gradually build- 
ing, out of a chaotic mass of individual opinions 
and expressions, a real body of International 
Law. Is all this machinery to be stopped and 
scrapped and its advantages thrown away be- 
cause a handful of irreconcilables in America 
think—or pretend to think—that something else 
would be more to their taste? 

39 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


But, some may ask, why not use “the old 
Hague Tribunal” instead? Now, the old Hague 
Tribunal is not, and never was, a court. It is 
simply a list of names on paper—a “panel” of 
135 judges, not sitting as a court either at the 
Hague or anywhere else, not possessing any court 
organization, scattered all over the face of the 
earth, practising law, or sitting in their own 
local courts. Any of these men simply stand 
ready, if called upon by two disputing nations, 
to act as arbitrators. Very seldom have they 
been so called upon—less often than once a year 
for twenty years—because they are not an ever- 
ready, organized court, and it requires a good 
deal of trouble to select, and draft for action, 
any one judge among them, to serve merely as 
a temporary arbitrator. 

The truth is, there never has been any court 
among nations other than the new International 
Court of Justice, now three years old. It alone 
really sits at the Hague, in the Peace Palace 
built by our own Andrew Carnegie. And as we 
look into the future, there is no prospect of any 
other court. 

40 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


And Only One Forum 


It is equally unthinkable that the World 
Forum, the League of Nations, can now be 
scrapped. The League is five years old; it has 
54 adherents; it has its League Covenant; it has 
its organization with about 160 representatives 
in the Assembly, representing all the 54 nations 
and with 10 men in the Council, representing the 
big nations and several of the little ones; it has 
400 employees in the Secretariat, with as many 
more in the Labor Office; it has a score of com- 
mittees and commissions all as busy as bees; it 
has records, including 632 treaties dependent for 
their validity on the fact that they are deposited 
with the Secretariat. It is a great and going 
concern. 

With these two great going concerns—the 
Court at the Hague and the League at Geneva— 
already in existence, it is as preposterous to sug- 
gest that we could, if we would, substitute some- 
thing different for either of them, as it would be 
to suggest substituting something different for 
the United States of America. We can find fault 

41 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


with our United States, more fault—if we can 
believe the front page of almost every daily 
newspaper—than we can find with the League of 
Nations! But if, say, California or Texas or 
New Mexico, when offered the chance to become 
a State of the United States, instead of a terri- 
tory, had coolly asked us to scrap the United 
States so that they could prepare a United 
States, how would such a proposal have been 
received and what would have been the result? 

We must continue to be on our guard against 
those who are trying to draw such red herrings 
across our trail. It is the same little band of 
irreconcilables who once sought to kill the 
League by offering a League, that recently 
sought to kill the Court by offering a Court, who 
thus try to evade, to dodge, to mislead. 

The conclusion, then, is that not only must 
we have a Court and a Forum in common with 
the rest of the world, but that there is only one 
Court and only one Forum which we can have 
in common with the rest of the world. We find 
our practical course of action narrowed down, at 
the very least, to the course which Mr. Lever- 

42 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


more has proposed, that we (1) join the Court 
and (2) sit in with the League. 


Sitting In 

Indeed, the Hughes Plan for our joining the 
Court involves sitting in with the League to the 
extent required for participation in the election 
of judges. The Levermore Plan involves only a 
little more sitting in with the League. Under 
that plan we would sit in for the purpose of gen- 
eral discussion, tho without any vote and without 
any obligation. The Levermore Plan adds only 
a very little—a harmless and hopeful little—to 
the Hughes Plan. 

Already, despite our efforts to keep aloof, we 
have developed twenty-five American contacts 
with European post-war problems. Fifteen of 
these contacts were brought about by official 
action of our Government. In eight cases the 
Government officially appointed official or “un- 
official” observers in the side shows of the 
League. In two cases (the Hydrographic Bu- 
reau and the Health Committee) we hold 
complete official membership. The Hughes- 

43 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Harding-Coolidge proposal, now endorsed by the 
Republican platform, is that we have representa- 
tives in the main tents, the Council and Assem- 
bly, when judges are to be elected, without 
having permanent representation. Finally, Mr. 
Levermore simply proposes that, instead of 
withdrawing when the election of judges is over, 
we remain as unofficial observers and talkers, 
but not voters, for other purposes as well, in 
short that we “sit in.” 

Again be it said, we can do much more than 
these two things, joining the Court and sitting 
in with the League, but we can scarcely do less. 

Such small steps forward as these two, pro- 
posed by Secretary Hughes and by Mr. Lever- 
more, are really no more than those which we 
have already taken “unofficially.” Note the con- 
trast between 1920 and to-day: 

In 1920 the League was pronounced “dead,” 
but last December President Coolidge said, “We 
hope it will be helpful.” 

Four years ago the State Department would 
not recognize the League, even to the extent of 
answering its communications; but to-day it is 

at 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


the established policy to answer such communica- 
tions promptly. 

In 1920, when Holland turned over to the 
League its duties regarding the Opium conven- 
tion, the United States demurred and, for a time, 
solemnly sent and received all its mail on the 
subject via the Dutch Government altho the cor- 
respondence was really with the Secretariat of 
the League in Switzerland; but to-day we make 
direct connections. 

Four years ago the “American Group” of 
judges under the old Hague conferences declined 
an invitation to nominate a judge for the Inter- 
national Court of Justice; but later, at a by- 
election, they accepted a similar invitation (and 
their candidate was elected by the League). 

Four years ago the Senate irreconcilables 
thought that they had succeeded in stopping all 
participation by the United States in any League 
activity; but to-day, thanks to Hughes and 
Coolidge, not only do we participate in many 
League activities, but the Republican platform 
contains a pledge to continue the “humanitarian” 
| cooperation. 

45 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


It is manifest destiny that we shall go on in 
the same direction. An irreconcilable senator 
exclaimed, after the Republican platform was 
adopted, “That means we shall get into the 
League within five years!” 


The Isolatwnists Isolated 


On their merits, what possible objection can 
there be to these two propositions, supporting 
Court and Forum? Well, there are eleven peo- 
ple in Washington to-day who are trying to 
prevent America doing even these two things. 
Why they so strenuously oppose even the Court 
as recommended by Hughes, by Harding, and 
by Coolidge, will bear investigation. Certainly 
it is not because public opinion objects to the 
Hughes-Harding-Coolidge plan. There must be 
something behind it all. The personal animosi- 
ties and political ambitions of 1920 should be 
extinct to-day. The same men who alleged in 
1920 that, not they, but “obstinate” Mr. Wilson 
stood in the way of our entering the League with 
reservations, now that they themselves have the 
opportunity to put through the program they once 

46 


ONLY ONE WAY OUT 


professed to want, not only do not put it through 
but try to prevent it. If they sincerely favored 
the League with the Lodge reservations when, 
so they claimed, they could not get it, why do 
they now oppose it when they could get it? 
There must be a reason, or reasons, why these 
eleven irreconcilables are still so irreconcilable; 
irreconcilable not only against Wilson, but 
against Hughes, Harding, Coolidge, both party 
platforms, and the great body of the American 
people themselves. Whatever the reason is that 
these men oppose everything and everybody, we 
may, at any rate, rejoice that, at last, these isola- 
lationists stand isolated themselves! No longer 
can they pretend to be following a popular man- 
date—a “majority of seven million voters.” 
Both parties being now committed to the Court, 
the isolationists represent nobody but themselves, 
unless it be certain special interests—an ‘“in- 
visible Government.” 

Yet, despite this isolation of the isolationists 
and the almost unanimous opposition of public 
opinion to them, so far at least as the Court is 
concerned, it is still a grave question whether 

47 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


we shall be allowed to enter even the Court, for 
a long time to come. The irreconcilables are still 
in a Strategic position in the Senate—and espe- 
cially in the Committee on Foreign Relations— 
to defeat the will of the American people. Their 
opposition can be overcome only by a strong 
assertion of that will. They have already had 
their way against the desires of three presidents, 
Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge. They will con- 
tinue to have their way until the American 
people are thoroughly aroused. 

But delay is dangerous. The risk of war is 
always greater in the decade following a war 
than at any other time. While we are waiting, 
another world war may be upon us. 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 





Il 
WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


Introduction 


It would not do to rest the pro-League and 
pro-Court case at this point—to be content with 
showing that there is no escape from joining the 
Court and sitting in with the League. It remains 
to show the positive reasons why we should do 
these two things—reasons which should not 
simply wring reluctant consent but should arouse 
enthusiasm; reasons which already make some of 
us enthusiastic enough to devote time, money, 
and effort to the reeducating of the American 
people againt the insidious propaganda of the 
irreconcilables; reasons which, in large measure, 
led Justice Clarke to resign from the Supreme 
Court so that he could devote his time to per- 
suading his fellow-countrymen to approve the 
League and Court; reasons which led Leon Bour- 
geois, in like manner, to resign from the French 

51 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Senate so that he might devote his life to help- 
ing establish the prestige of the League in 
France; reasons which led Lord Robert Cecil to 
dedicate his great abilities to the same purpose 
in England; reasons which led Edward Bok to 
offer so large a prize; reasons which led Justice 
Clarke, Mr. Wickersham, and many others of 
us to give money as well as time and effort to the 
League of Nations non-Partizan Association. 
Evidently these men pin their faith to the 
League of Nations and the World Court as the 
great bulwarks of civilization against war. 
Why do they have this faith? In short, what 
are the basic reasons why America should join 
and uphold the League and the Court? 

There are two groups of reasons—selfish and 
unselfish. Let us begin with the selfish ones, the 
reasons of national self-interest. 


The League Stopped Six Wars 


First, the record of the League is good; it is 
reassuring—the real proof of the pudding is 
always in the eating. We were more or less 
excusable in 1919 and 1920 to have misjudged 

52 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


what the League could and would do and become. 
But to-day we are not to be excused. The 
record of the League, for five years, lies, an open 
book, before us. The League is its own best 
advertisement. As already indicated, it is win- 
ning converts every day. 

It has proven to be neither a superstate nor 
a futile rope of sand, but something practical 
between these extremes. There is less threat of 
force, either military or economic, than most 
people expected, but more influence of public 
opinion, especially the public opinion of small 
nations. Like all human institutions, the League 
proves to be in concrete reality, not exactly what 
at first it seemed likely to be on paper. 

In four years the League has snuffed out, or 
headed off, six wars, any one of which might 
otherwise have developed into another World 
War. These were: Sweden versus Finland, Jugo- 
slavia versus Albania, Germany versus Poland, 
Poland versus Lithuania—all over disputed terri- 
tory—Bulgaria versus Roumania over a question 
of refugees, and Italy versus Greece over certain 
murders and the occupation of Corfu. 

53 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Jugoslavia and Albania 


Two of these may be described as respectively 
the most successful and least successful instances 
of the League’s efficiency as a war-fighting 
device. 

Jugoslavia invaded Albania, thinking thereby 
to take the territory that lay in dispute between 
them. In the days before the League, such an 
invasion would not have been the concern of any 
other countries—except possibly to join in the 
fight if it should go too far. But in the League 
Covenant, it is expressly stated that it shall be 
“the friendly right” of any member of the League 
to call the attention of the League Council to 
any circumstance threatening World Peace. Act- 
ing under this authority, Lloyd George tele- 
graphed the Council sitting at Geneva, calling 
their attention to this invasion of Albania by 
Jugoslavia, pointing out that it was a plain vio- 
lation of Article X, and suggesting a boycott of 
Jugoslavia under Article XVI. 

Of course, the League itself can not boycott; 
for the League is not a superstate. It is more 

54 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


like a Rotary Club than a government. It is 
only, as the French call it, a “Society of Na- 
tions,” and its highest power is to advise the 
sovereign nations composing the League. Lloyd 
George’s telegram simply meant, therefore, that 
England advised the Advisory Committee of the 
League to advise all members of the League to 
boycott Jugoslavia. But no further action was 
necessary ; that one telegram was sufficient! 
Jugoslavia saw that the game was up. Her ex- 
change fell. It became impossible for her to 
raise the loan by which she had intended to wage 
war. Accordingly, she changed her tune and 
offered to arbitrate. So the Council arbitrated 
the question and the war was stopped. Remem- 
ber, it was in this same region—the Balkans— 
that the World War started, over an incident 
seemingly no more important! 


The Corfu Incident 


In some cases the League, in stopping wars, 
has not functioned one hundred per cent. Yet, 
even in the Corfu incident, ordinarily falsely 
regarded as a complete failure of the League, it 

55 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


functioned at least seventy-five per cent. Briefly, 
the history of the Corfu incident is as follows: 
After the murder of certain Italians, attributable, 
Italy claimed, to Greek assassins, Italy seized 
Corfu, a Greek island. Presumably Mussolini 
intended to hold Corfu permanently; at any rate, 
word was being passed around that Corfu for- 
merly and properly belonged to Italy. It was, 
no doubt, in order that the League should not 
interfere with this purpose that Mussolini threat- 
ened (in a newspaper interview) to withdraw 
from the League should it not yield to his wishes. 

But Mussolini found that he had stirred up a 
hornet’s nest! All the small nations in the 
League were seething. They felt that Corfu was 
Belgium all over again, that Mussolini was play- 
ing the part of a new Kaiser, and that no small 
nations could be safe if Article X could thus be 
trampled upon with impunity. They made their 
protests vociferously in the Assembly of the 
League, and public opinion throughout the world 
was quickly mobilized against Italy. 

In the League Council, all the members except 
Signor Salandra, representing Italy, not only 

56 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


were willing to accede to the request of Greece 
to consider the matter, but were ready to accept 
the plan of settlement offered by the Spanish 
representative. Mussolini saw that, in the face 
of such world disapproval, organized through the 
League of Nations, his position was untenable. 
But, inasmuch as he had publicly said he would 
not allow the League to consider this matter, 
the only way to “save his face” seemed to be to 
allow some one else to decide the dispute, and 
this he did by suggesting the Council of Am- 
bassadors. Technically, be it said, he was quite 
justified in having the Council of Ambassadors, 
representing organized diplomacy, consider the 
matter first. For the League is supposed to begin 
where diplomacy ends, and, in this particular 
case, the Council of Ambassadors had been in 
charge of the boundary problem from the start 
and the slain men were its employees. 
Accordingly, Lord Robert Cecil said, ‘Since 
Italy stands in the way of a League settlement, 
and since Mussolini offers to allow the Council 
of Ambassadors to settle the question, I shall 
take the liberty of communicating to the Council 
57 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


of Ambassadors in Paris, the exact facts, namely, 
that, except for Italy, we would consider it and 
would ‘accept the Spanish plan.” Accordingly 
the Secretariat telephoned the Council of Am- 
bassadors a full account of the Council’s dis- 
cussion, including a description of the Spanish 
plan, and the day after receiving it the Council 
of Ambassadors telegraphed Mussolini their de- 
cision, which was substantially the Spanish plan! 
Mussolini accepted the decision, altho it did 
not harmonize with his original “ultimatum.” | 
In short, the settlement finally reached—in 
nine days—was due to the League, altho the 
credit in the eyes of the public went to the 
Council of Ambassadors. The Council of Am- 
bassadors acted merely as a go-between connect- 
ing the League and Mussolini, since Mussolini 
had refused to deal directly with the League. 
The procedure used reminds me of the story 
of a friend who visited India recently. After 
going over a Hindoo temple, he desired to give 
some money to the Priest who had shown him 
about, but the Priest refused to take his money. 
Thereupon, the guide, who was conducting my 
58 





WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


friend, informed him that the Priest really 
wanted the money but would not take it from 
my friend’s hands because my friend was “un- 
clean.” “Give your money,” said the guide, 
“to the Hindoo boy, and let him hand it to the 
Priest,” and this was done. And so the Coun- 
cil of Ambassadors was merely the small boy 
who handed to Mussolini what Mussolini would 
not take directly from the League! 

Some people criticized the League for not 
standing on its dignity, but the purpose of the 
League is to maintain peace and to follow what- 
ever method best secures that end. The League 
succeeded in: (1) giving vent to Greece’s protest 
and so preventing rash action which might have 
precipitated war had there been no League 
(moreover, instead of being dishonored for not 
fighting, Greece was honored for keeping her 
pledge not to fight); (2) changing Mussolini’s 
mind as to holding Corfu; (3) forming the plan 
finally adopted; (4) getting Italy finally to 
join in a vote of the Council virtually withdraw- 
ing Mussolini’s original contention that such 
matters were no concern of the League (the vote 

59 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


read, “Any dispute between members of the 
League likely to lead to a rupture is within 
the sphere of action of the League”). Through- 
out it all no part was played by America, altho 
there was grave danger of afiother world war 
had not nations other than Italy and Greece 
taken a hand in the matter. 


The League’s Five Methods 


The League has many methods at its disposal 
for preventing or stopping war, available when- 
ever ordinary diplomacy fails. There are five 
principal methods: (1) getting the disputants 
to refer their dispute to a third party, e.g., the 
World Court or the League Council, for judi- 
cial decision, arbitration, or conciliation; (2) a 
“cooling off” period while the third party is try- 
ing to arrive at a fair settlement; (3) the pos- 
sibility of other attempts at adjustment if the 
first does not succeed; (4) recommending (not 
ordering) a boycott against a nation which vio- 
lates its pledges; (5) recommending (not order- 
ing) military force as a last resort against such 
a nation, if all other efforts fail. Thus, recom- 

60 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


mending force is only the last resort; it has 
never yet been resorted to and probably never 
will be, and even if it should be, each nation 
would be free to reject the recommendation if it 
did not feel called upon to accede to it. 


The League Made the Court Possible 


Besides snuffing out six wars—never using 
force, but preventing its use in each case—the 
League has made possible the World Court. A 
World Court had been sought ever since the 
Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, but 
for a long time proved unattainable because 
every nation on earth insisted on having a judge, 
while some wanted more than one judge. Con- 
sequently, the only practical result of the efforts 
of the Hague Peace Conference to create a world 
court was the so-called Hague Tribunal, already 
referred to, a “panel” of 135 judges. 

Only when the League came along was it 
possible to sift down one or two hundred names 
so as to form a workable Court. The League af- 
forded the much needed sifting machinery, the 
electoral college, as it were. It gave every na- 

61 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


tion a fair chance for a judge—a chance to have 
its nominees considered and their qualifications 
discussed—without actually giving every nation 
a judge. Some two hundred nominations were 
put into the League hopper three years ago and 
sifted down to eleven. When any judge is se- 
lected both by the Assembly of the League, 
where every nation has a vote, and by the Coun- 
cil of the League, where the four great Powers, 
(five when the United States goes in) together 
with six small Nations elected by the Assembly, 
have votes, that judge is thereby duly elected. 
This method of election was the proposal of 
Elihu Root, and it was suggested to him by a 
Professor of Law in Harvard University. It sur- 
mounted a difficulty previously insurmountable. 

As Justice Clarke has well said, merely by 
thus giving to the world, for the first time in 
history, an International Court of Justice, the 
League has justified its existence. Henceforth, 
disinterested justice will have a greater chance 
to be heard, while interested force will have 
less. War will give place to law—will be out- 
lawed—in fact, as well as in name. 

62 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


The League Rescued Austria 


But the League has much more to its credit 
than stopping six wars, and setting up a Court 
to stop other wars. It has resuscitated Austria. 
Two years ago Austria was bankrupt and ap- 
pealed to the League for help, thereby begin- 
ning one of the most dramatic episodes in all 
history. A nation once great, but now defeated 
and humiliated, calls for help to a League, con- 
sisting for the most part of its former enemies, 
and calls not in vain. For the League does not 
represent, as its detractors have claimed, the 
vengeance of the conqueror—a “means of hold- 
ing Germany and Austria down’—but rather, 
it represents peace on earth and good-will toward 
men. 

Of course, the League could not render any 
direct help because it is not a “superstate.” It 
has not the first principles of statehood. It has 
not the power to levy taxes for its own support. 
It has no army, no navy, no police. It is a 
forum for discussion and planning. It has no 
power to compel any one to accept its recom- 


mendations. 
63 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


What the League did do was virtually to say, 
“Tf you will meet us half way, we will recommend 
to the members of the League that they help 
finance you; first, you must discharge your su- 
pernumerary employees, including a hundred 
thousand railway employees which you can’t 
afford; in this and other ways you must cut 
your expenses to the bone. On the other hand, 
you must tax yourselves until it hurts. When 
you have thus increased your revenue and low- 
ered your expenses, you will come nearer balanc- 
ing your budget and have less need to inflate. 
Inflating your paper money is ruining you. If 
you do all that you can to stop inflation, we will 
advise the other members of the League to 
finance you out of your difficulties and put you 
on your feet.” To administer the Austrian 
finances, the League appointed Mr. Zimmer- 
man, of Holland, as a sort of receiver, and on 
the advice of the Council of the League, the 
creditor nations postponed the payment of the 
debts of Austria for twenty years, 7.e., gave her 
a twenty-year moratorium. In the meantime, 
they helped Austria to raise money by under- 

6+ 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


writing thirty-two million pounds sterling of 
Austrian bonds. These bonds would never have 
sold at all if they had had nothing behind them 
except the pledges of a bankrupt Government. 
But, following the recommendation of the 
League, they were underwritten by Great 
Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, 
Switzerland, and Czecho-Slovakia, and so under- 
written they became readily salable. Within 
fifteen minutes after being put on the markets 
of the world these bonds were oversubscribed. 
This resuscitation of Austria became the eco- 
nomic miracle of Europe. None of the under- 
writers has needed, or will be needed, to be called 
upon. To-day Austria is doing business, and 
her neighbors are bringing business to her, as a 
better market than their own. Inflation has 
stopped, and her paper money is now on a stable 
basis so that commerce is possible. All this is 
due to the League of Nations. The League of 
Nations is to-day doing the same thing for 
Hungary and Albania. In the case of Hungary, 
an American, Jeremiah Smith, is receiver. Even 
for Germany much the same model was followed 
65 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


in the “Dawes Plan.” The essentials of all these 
plans are the same—a moratorium, an external 
loan,,and a bank of issue beyond the reach of 
inflation. 


Why Not Germany Too? 


The Dawes plan, or something like it, for Ger- 
many undoubtedly would have been, not only 
recommended, but actually put in force long 
ago had America been in the League of Nations. 
The reason why such a plan was not carried out 
for Germany, but only for Austria, was that 
France was willing to let a little enemy recover, 
but not a big one. 

The Englishman virtually told the Frenchman 
that he ought to let Germany recover as a 
means of promoting Germany’s power to pay 
reparations. But the shrewd Frenchman re- 
plied, “Ah, but if Germany recovers sufficiently 
to pay us she will recover sufficiently to fight 
us, and she will fight us instead of paying us, 
in fact she will fight us in order not to pay us.” 

If we are to understand France, the one thing 
we must never overlook is that what France 

66 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


desires above all else is security. She wants 
reparations, but she wants security more. She 
is still a shell-shocked country, in more senses 
than one. She has fear of Germany on the brain, 
and who can blame her? If that fear could be 
allayed, she would be willing to allow Germany 
to recover in order to get reparations from her. 
After France felt that America had deserted her, 
she saw, or thought she saw, that her only real 
means of safety from attack by Germany lay in 
her own military strength. This explains the 
so-called militarism of France to-day. As 
George P. Auld, formerly with the Reparations 
Commission, has said, America has a big respon- 
sibility in thus throwing France back on her 
own resources. France really not only wanted 
America to join the League of Nations and ac- 
cept Article X in particular, the one safeguard 
against invasion, but also, so to speak, a special 
application of Article X to safeguard against 
another unprovoked attack by Germany. 

Had we joined the League, Article X and all, 
the whole history of Europe, since 1919, would 
probably have been different. France might 

67 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


then have felt herself secure. She would have 
felt that Germany would never dare attack her. 
Under these circumstances, there would never be 
any attack; and there would be no occasion for 
the United States to send troops abroad. France, 
under these circumstances, would never have 
kept her army of seven hundred thousand men, 
would never have entered the Ruhr, and would, 
long before this, have allowed a sensible settle- 
ment of the reparation question so that Ger- 
many could pay to the utmost of her capacity. 

But, lacking this feeling of security, France 
entered the Ruhr as soon as she could find a 
pretext in order, really, to hold Germany down; 
for the Ruhr is where the munitions, both me- 
chanical and chemical, are made; and as long as 
France has her grip on these economic vitals 
of Germany, Germany can do her no harm. 

We see, then, that France was, in her opinion 
at least, forced to such measures by our refusal 
to give her the cooperation she wanted. Failing 
to secure sufficient international guarantees, she 
fell back on national guarantees. 

In short, the reason the League of Nations has 

68 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


brought about the resuscitation of Austria, and 
not that of Germany, is that the League could 
accomplish the smaller job, but not the larger 
one, without America’s aid. 

Even now should we merely join the Court 
and sit in with the League, French fears would 
be lessened, and the recovery of Europe thereby 
hastened, to our own direct financial and com- 
mercial advantage. 


The League’s Humanitarian Work 


Besides promoting peace and the economic re- 
covery of Europe, the League has many won- 
derful humanitarian accomplishments to its 
credit. It has stopped the spread of disease 
from one country to another, such as typhus 
from Poland; it has limited the opium trade and 
reduced the white slave traffic. The last fact 
should especially be emphasized because among 
the false pictures of the League, freely circu- 
lated in the 1920 propaganda of the irreconcil- 
ables, was one to the effect that the League 
recognized white slavery. Of course, it never 
did, and now it is proving to be the greatest 

69 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


agency the world has ever had for suppressing 
white slavery, the traffic in women and girls, 
throughout the world, largely under the leader- 
ship of our own Miss Grace Abbott, altho she 
is only an “unofficial observer.” 


The League Record as a Whole 


The most remarkable fact about the League 
is that its Conference method so generally suc- 
ceeds in bringing about unanimous agreement 
where, prior to the conference, the disagree- 
ments seemed irreconcilable. As Will Irwin so 
well says, after a first hand observation of the 
Opium Committee, where commercial interests, 
at one time, seemed adamant against reform, 
the League conferees find it “impossible, in the © 
!” The whole passage is worth 
quoting as typical of League Conferences in gen- 
eral. “Yet to me and to others who watched 
those tense meetings in the Hall of Open Di- 


end, not to agree 


plomacy the agreement on the opium question 

was not the real feature, the real headline to 

the story. The outstanding fact was that two 

bodies of men so widely different in background 
70 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


and character, meeting under circumstances cal- 
culated to raise all possible suspicion, dislike, 
mutual distrust, found it impossible, in the end, 
not to agree. Across the invisible distances the 
dead eyes of forty million drugged men and 
women were staring, their loose lips muttering 
an appeal. And all these hard-headed admin- 
istrators, technicians, politicians, were also in 
their hearts men of good-will. But they knew 
that no nation could accomplish this task alone. 
A current of history stronger than the collective 
human will was sweeping them together, as 
it is sweeping together, spite of twigs and straws, 
which they think are fighting the torrent, all 
the races and tribes of men.” 

Yes, the record of the League is good. Few, 
if any, dare assert the contrary to-day. While 
it may be freely admitted that the League has 
not always functioned one hundred per cent., 
that is the worst that can be said against the 
League. Like all human institutions, it has had 
its shortcomings and has not always done the 
ideal thing. This has been chiefly because it 
has lacked the necessary strength or prestige. 

71 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


But this is clearly an argument for America’s 
joining it and imparting that much needed 
strength and prestige, not for our holding aloof 
and sneering at the League for its weakness 
which we could so easily remedy. 

It should be emphasized that the League has 
never done harm; everything it has touched has 
been at least bettered thereby. That, surely, is 
the supreme test, and we may marvel that the 
League has met the test so well, considering that 
it is still an infant of only five years, and that, 
in a sense, its own mother, thanks to our irre- 
concilables, deserted it at birth. 


What the Court Has Done 


The history of the Court is likewise good. It 
is two years old. Its eight advisory opinions 
and its one decision in a controversial case (the 
Wimbleton case) have been accepted as author- 
itative. It has settled more disputes in its 
brief career than did our Supreme Court in a 
similar period. 

So our first reason for joining the Court and 
the League is that their history is good. They 

72 


WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS 


deserve our support on their splendid record, 
made—we should blush to remember—without 
our help. 

What say those irreconcilables to this record? 
Why do they hang their heads in silence? 











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OTHER SELFISH REASONS 





IV 
OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


Our Own Traditions 


The second selfish reason why we ought to 
join the League and Court is because our own 
traditions are favorable to such action. We 
need not go back to the days of George Wash- 
ington, when the Atlantic Ocean was far wider 
than it is to-day; but back as far as President 
McKinley we find every President of the United 
States, without a single exception, in favor of 
America ‘joining a World Court, while from 
Roosevelt’s day, every President has been in 
favor of our joining a League, or Association, 
of Nations; and only the last two have even 
wavered. 

The idea of a World Court is, in fact, peculi- 
arly an American contribution. It was early 
advocated by such men as Joseph Choate, and 
the realization of it was finally achieved by 
such men as Elihu Root. 

77 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Theodore Roosevelt 


The “first great statesman to favor a League. 
of Nations was Roosevelt. He did this in 1910 
when he took the Nobel Peace Prize and se- 
lected, as the subject of his address at Chris- 
tiania, a League of Nations. When the World 
War broke out in 1914, he returned to the sub- 
ject and, in a series of four articles, syndicated 
in the New York Times and other Sunday news- 
papers, advocated “A League of Nations for 
the Peace of Righteousness” to follow the World 
War. He said that we would be derelict of duty 
if, after this war, we failed to create such an 
agency to prevent future world wars. After 
America entered that war in 1917, Roosevelt 
again returned to the subject and continued 
to advocate such a League in articles in The 
Independent, The Outlook, The Metropolitan 
Magazine, and his book on “America and the 
War.” 

All of his writings up to this point were on a 
League, not the League. Roosevelt died six 
weeks before the Covenant of the League had 

78 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


been reduced to writing, even in its first draft. 
However, he did live to see the League being 
planned. In the January, 1919, Metropolitan 
Magazine he said in reference to the League, 
being then proposed by Mr. Wilson, “Let us 
enter such a League,” and three days before he 
died, namely, on January 3, 1919, while Mr. 
Wilson was in Paris, and after a conference with 
Mr. Taft on this subject, Mr. Roosevelt dic- 
tated an editorial for the Kansas City Star, 
which was published on January 13, a few days 
after he died. In this, his last editorial, Roose- 
velt stated that he could thoroughly agree in 
principle with Mr. Taft, and did not doubt that 
the details would be worked out, to which he 
could agree also. Altho he never lived to see the 
completed League Covenant, it should be noted 
that it, especially Article X, is strikingly like 
Roosevelt’s description of what such a covenant 
should be. 


William H. Taft 


Ex-President Taft favored a League of Na- 
tions as early as 1915—later than Roosevelt, but 
79 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


earlier than Wilson. When the League was be- 
ing planned, he offered constructive criticism 
which Mr. Wilson accepted, and he has ever 
since supported Mr. Wilson and the League, 
without wavering. 


Woodrow Wilson 


There is no need to show that Mr. Wilson was 
for the League. It will forever be associated 
with his name. “A prophet is not without honor 
save in his own country.” It was largely be- 
cause of the unwillingness of his personal en- 
emies and political opponents to allow Mr. 
Wilson to achieve success which has obstructed 
America in this matter. One prominent poli- 
tician said privately, “The League is the great- 
est event in history; but I hate Woodrow Wilson 
so that I can’t very cordially support it.” Con- 
trast this spirit with that of Mr. Wilson himself 
after his defeat. Dean Robbins of the Cathedral 
of St. John the Divine tells of an interview with 
Mr. Wilson in 1923 in which he, the Dean, and 
Norman Davis gave Mr. Wilson evidence that 
the League was coming more into favor. “Mr. 

80 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


Wilson expressed agreement... and... said, 
‘I’m not sorry I broke down.’ We looked at him 
in surprize, and then he went on to explain that 
if by his personal influence he had been able to 
secure ... entry into the League .. . it would 
have been a great personal and political triumph, 
‘but,’ he added, ‘as it is coming now, the Amer- 
ican people are thinking their way through, and 
reaching their own free decision, and that is the 
better way for it to come.’ ” 


Warren G. Harding 


Mr. Harding, as Senator, twice voted in favor 
of entering the League with reservations. After- 
ward, as candidate for President, he supported 
the equivocal plank in the Republican Platform 
_ for an “Association of Nations.” 

His statements were usually vague. They 
were interpreted by many pro-League Republi- 
cans as pro-League and by many anti-League 
Republicans as anti-League. Careful study 
shows, however, that all his pronouncements are 
consistent with his statement to me personally 
on August 2, 1920, when I visited him to ascer- 

81 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


tain his precise stand, “I want the United States 
to get into the League just as much as you do,” 
but ‘‘1°am opposed to the Wilson League. But 
it can be changed.” I understood him to mean © 
especially as to Article X. On August 28, 1920, 
he said, “He [the Democratic nominee] is in 
favor of going in [the League] on the basis an- 
nounced by the President. I am not. That is 


the whole difference between us... . Iam op- 
posed to such a scheme [as the unamended 
League]. ... The other type is a society of 


free nations, or an association of free nations, 
or a league of free nations, animated by con- 
siderations of right and justice instead of might 
and self-interest . . . such an association I favor 
with all my heart. . . . Advocates of the League 
of Versailles state the Hague Tribunal lacks 


teeth. Let’s put teeth into it.... If, in the 
failed League of Versailles, there can be found 
machinery which the Tribunal can use .. . let 


it be appropriated. I would even go further. J 

would take and combine all that is good and 

excise all that is bad from both associations .. . 

if the League . . . has been so intertwined... 
82 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


into the peace of Europe that its good must be 
preserved ... then it can be amended or re- 
vised.” 

September 3: “I warn you now that if you 
ever accept the League of Nations as it stands 
written at present, we are in honor-bound to an- 
swer the call of European nations to come to 
their defense.” 

September 5: “I have tried to make it clear 
that I want America to play its part in creating 
some new association of nations—I don’t care 
specifically about the Hague Tribunal any more 
than I do about the League. ... I would sug- 
gest an association or a society or a league. ... 
I am talking about the League as an interna- 
tional political body on the one hand and pro- 
posing a rational substitute for it, or an 
amended form of it.” 

September 8: “Mr. Wickersham’s statement 
[on September 5 that Harding was pro-League] 
calls for no construction by me.... We are 
all agreed now that amendment, or revision, or 
reconstruction is possible and vastly better than 
reservation.” 

| 8&3 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


October 14: “Our first duty, having rejected 
... the... betrayal of America as expressed, 
for instance, in Article X . . . is to set our faces 
toward an association with other nations.... 
I regard such a policy as perhaps the greatest 
contribution... for . .. the world’s peace.” 

October 26: “[Commenting on Bourgeois’ 
statement that Article X is inconsequential] 
The only safety for the United States is to 
remain outside [the League] wntil we may unite 
upon a plan for an association of nations that 
shall mean the same thing to everybody.” 

The above quotations speak for themselves. 
In the equivalent of about thirty typewritten 
pages concerning Harding’s statements, of which 
the foregoing are fair samples, I can find no 
campaign utterance definitely and totally re- 
jecting the League. Mr. Harding accepted the 
support of Mr. Taft and “the 31,” including 
Root, Hughes, Hoover, Wickersham, Strauss, 
Stimson, and Lowell, who believed and pro- 
claimed him to be pro-League and advised voters 
to vote for him on that basis. 

But, following his election, Mr. Harding, after 

84 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


some feeble efforts, found it impossible to muster 
sufficient senate support to insure his modified 
League program; the irreconcilables seemed to 
persuade him, themselves, and the country, that 
the overwhelming Republican victory was really 
an anti-League victory. After this surrender, 
acquiesced in by his most ardent pro-League 
cabinet members, Hughes and Hoover, he con- 
tented himself with proposing, as the “first step,” 
membership in the World Court. 

Nevertheless he was not fully content. In 
November, 1921, at the Arms Conference, ac- 
cording to General Allen, he tried to bring for- 
ward the promised “Association” of Nations but 
found it inexpedient. After he died, Walter 
Wellman described an interview with Harding 
shortly before he died in which he said he in- 
tended soon to make good the “Association” 
plank by calling an international conference 
in 1924. 

The following despatch from Marion, Ohio, 
November 3, 1920, by Frank J. Taylor shows 
how a watchful newspaper, as well as Mr. Hard- 
ing himself, had interpreted the campaign: 

85 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


“After Democratic headquarters had con- 
ceded last night the election of Senator Harding 
to the presidency, I offered the congratulations 
of The Globe and asked the president-elect: 
‘Senator, The Globe has supported you, believ- 
ing in the League of Nations. The Globe wants 
to know, now that you are elected, whether or 
not you intend to enter a league.’ To which 
Senator Harding replied: ‘You can assure The 
Globe that it need have no apprehension about 
our entry into a league or association of nations. 
I have covered that question thoroughly in my 
campaign, I hope. The Globe need have no 
worries.’ ”’ 

I followed up Wellman’s article by quoting 
Harding’s explicit statement to me after which 
others, publicly or privately, described similar 
statements to them. 

It seems worth while thus to summarize 
Harding’s somewhat vague statements because, 
after he died, anti-League politicians vocifer- 
ously claimed him as one of them and assailed 
those who attempted to recall the facts which 
have just been cited. 

86 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


Calvin Coolidge 


Mr. Coolidge, when a candidate for vice-pres- 
ident, and before, favored the League. After 
the election of 1920, in a speech to Boston busi- 
ness men, he said: “I doubt if any particular 
mandate was given at the last election on the 
question of the League of Nations.” The New 
York Times (November 24, 1920, page 1, column 
4) reported his saying “that the League brought 
back by President Wilson was ‘dead.’ Whether 
the people would decide to use the old League as 
a working basis in forming a new world body 
was the question, the governor said’—state- 
ments almost as equivocal as Harding’s, but, 
like Harding’s, looking forward to keeping, in 
good faith, the party platform pledge of an 
Association of Nations. 

But when he became President, Mr. Coolidge, 
like Mr. Harding before him, found himself 
blocked by the irreconcilables in the Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations. Rather than 
fight these irreconcilables, split his party, give 
Hiram Johnson his one chance to run for Pres- 

87 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


ident, and perhaps wreck his whole legislative 
program, he surrendered even more explicitly 
than his predecessor. But be it noted that Mr. 
Coolidge, while calling the League incident 
“closed,”’ has never said that he approved of its 
being closed. It is also to be noted that the 
Republican platform speaks of joining the Court 
as a “step” toward something further! 


Isolatton Out of Date 


So our national tradition, from McKinley and 


Roosevelt down, has, with some political equiv- 
ocation, been continuously in favor of our joining 
a Court and a League, or Association, of Nations. 

The older tradition of isolation went by the 
board when Dewey took the Philippines. To- 
day, after the World War, isolation would be 
an anachronism. America is now destined for- 
ever to have close contact with both East and 
West. We have become a creditor country. Our 
capital is overflowing into investments abroad. 
Our citizens obtain concessions in Russia and 
Turkey. The whole civilized world stretches 
out its hands to have us help develop its natural 

88 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


resources—oil, metals, rubber, etc. Econom- 
ically we are “entangled,” and it behooves us 
to safeguard against war, the trade, finance, 
and travel which are involved in the tangle. 

The only alternative is wholly impracticable 
—to build a Chinese wall about us and prohibit 
commercial, financial, and personal intercourse 
with the rest of the world. As long as there is 
intercourse, there will be disputes, and, unless 
we provide adequate means of settling those 
disputes peacefully, they will often lead to war. 

The tradition of isolation belongs only to 
bygone generations. The American tradition of 
this generation is one of cooperation. 

This, then, is our second selfish reason for 
joining the Court and participating in the 
Forum. 


Our Voice in the World 


A third selfish reason why we ought to join 
the Court and League is in order to make our 
voice heard in world affairs. Otherwise, great 
world precedents will be established without our 
being consulted, and we may frequently be as 

89 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


embarrassed as when the Island of Yap was 
disposed of by other nations against our in- 
terest ‘and in the interest of Japan simply be- 
cause we were not at the international council 
table to look after those interests. ) 
To avoid such blows we should not only sit 
in with the League, but join it outright; for, 
in that case, we would have a vote, and a vote 
carries with it a veto power. This is true be- 
cause the League requires unanimous consent: 
for all its votes, with a few unimportant excep- 
tions. Little Persia once blocked the other fifty 
and more nations in the Assembly. | 
Incidentally, here is a good place to note the 
fact that the unscrupulous irreconcilables, who 
fabricated the argument that Great Britain had 
six votes to our one, simply imposed on the 
ignorance of their audiences, who took it for 
granted that the League was run by majority 
vote. The argument, if we are afraid of other 
nations “putting something over” on us, is really 
reversed. They can put something over on us 
as long as we are out of the League, have already 
done so, and doubtless will do so in the future. 
90 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


But, once we are in the League, they can not. 
No member nation or nations can put anything 
over on the rest. This is why Mussolini, who 
once (as a bluff) threatened to withdraw from 
the League, recently said that Italy could not 
afford to get out. 


Our Stake in Europe’s Trade and Debts 


The fourth selfish reason for joining is in 
order to put Europe on her feet for our sake, 
so that she can again buy half of our cotton 
and a quarter of our corn and wheat, as she 
used to do but does not do now because she is 
too poor; and also in order that she may pay 
us some of the twelve billions of dollars she 
Owes US. 

The farmer has lost the foreign market. Why 
has he lost it? Because bankrupt people have 
no adequate purchasing power. And—to review 
the chain of arguments of Chapter [II—why is 
Europe bankrupt? Chiefly because of mone- 
tary inflation. Why have European nations in- 
flated their money? Because they can not bal- 
ance their budgets by honest taxation. Why 

3 91 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


can’t they balance their budgets? Because of 
the colossal, and in some cases indeterminate, 
debts they owe. Why have they these colossal 
debts? Because France stands in the way of 
reducing the reparation bill, which is the key to 
general debt reduction. Why does France thus 
stand in the way? Because she is afraid to let 
Germany recover lest Germany attack her. Why 
is France afraid? Because she has not suffi- 
cient confidence in the power of the infant League 
and the infant Court to keep the peace. Why 
does she lack confidence? Largely because the 
League and the Court lack the prestige which 
only the most powerful and disinterested nation 
on earth could give them. 

It is we ourselves, then, who stand in the way 
of European recovery and therefore of our own 
prosperity as dependent on that recovery. 

Thus the fourth reason for our joining is that 
we ought, in our own interest, to help restore 
Europe so that she can again become the good 
customer she once was, as well as to enable her 
to pay such a part of the debt she owes us as 
may be practicable. 

92 


ee 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


Our Interest mn Competitive Armaments 


The fifth selfish reason is: We ought to join 
to put a stop to the competition in armaments, 
which is ruining Europe and raising our taxes 
and will increasingly go on raising them. The 
Departments of War and Navy both tell us that 
if other nations are to compete in submarines, 
airplanes, gas apparatus, and what not, we must 
match their competition. We face a dilemma. 
Either we must compete with the rest of the 
world in armament or combine with the rest 
_ of the world in disarmament. The latter is the 
‘sensible course. 

Already a step has been taken in the right 
direction through the Hughes conference for the 
limitation of Naval Armament; but no one such 
conference can attack more than a part of the 
problem. What we want is a continuous con- 
ference. Such is the League, and at last, after 
two years’ study by an important committee, it 
has worked out a comprehensive plan of reduc- 
ing armaments on land as well as on sea. An- 
other plan has been presented to the League by 

93 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Professor Shotwell and other Americans. Mr. 
Hughes, in replying to the League’s letter re- 
garding disarmament, practically confesses that 
we can not cooperate because we are not a 
member of the League. If this be so, the fact 
is a strong argument for joining. 

One feature of the League’s plan is the virtual 
abolition of private traffic in munitions. In 
1919, a general “Convention” on this traffic was 
drawn up but blocked by the United States. 
And now, when the League tries again to get 
an agreement, we again stand in the way. Per- 
haps the mystery of the stubbornness of some 
of the irreconcilables has to do with the fear of 
our munition makers that a vote to join the 
League is virtually a vote to put them out of 
business. 


Our Interest in World Peace 


The final selfish reason why we ought to join 
is to stop war, which is, of course, the great 
object of the Court and the League of Nations, 
and which is, thus far, the greatest accomplish- 
ment of the League. 

94 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


It was this reason in particular which led 
Justice Clarke of the Supreme Court of the 
United States to resign his position in order to 
advocate the United States’ joining the League 
of Nations. War is far more destructive to-day 
than it was before. With the world now shrunk 
into one vast neighborhood, war can no longer 
be localized. A war in a crowded world is like 
a fire in a crowded city; it must be put out in- 
stantly or it will become a conflagration. We 
must have a war-extinguishing apparatus, like a 
fire-extinguishing apparatus, and one that will 
work quickly and effectively. Such is the 
League of Nations. It took only three years for 
the last conflagration to spread from the Bal- 
kans to America. The next fire may spread 
faster and farther and be more terrible in every 
way. We shall always be in danger of another 
Lusitania incident or Sussex incident or another 
attempt by some future Germany to confine our 
commerce to “lanes” in the sea. 

The situation is quite different from what it 
was a generation ago, or even five years ago, 
-because of the “progress” in the art of destruc- 

95 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


tion. With modern inventions the forces for 
destroying human life are so terrible that the 
human race must, in self-defense, prevent their 
ever getting loose again. Our own Professor 
Lewis has invented Lewisite Gas. Equipped 
with this gas a fleet of airplanes could, and in 
the next war probably would, cross the At- 
lantic in twenty-four hours and drop gas bombs 
on New York or any other American city, wip- 
ing out in a few hours a large part of the inhab- 
itants. After a series of such bombardments 
these cities might become almost as dead as 
Pompeii, and our civilization as dead as Greece 
and Rome. The next war will not be confined to 
the trenches, but will be fought largely behind 
the lines, from the air, against civilians of all 
ages and both sexes. It will be a war between 
peoples, as well as between soldiers, a war upon 
women and children. It may be not only gas 
warfare but germ warfare. Perhaps a “death- 
ray” and Heaven knows what other and more 
“efficient” kinds of warfare may follow. 

As Justice Clarke says, “Either civilization 
must destroy war or war will destroy civiliza- 

96 


OTHER SELFISH REASONS 


tion.” We have our choice, and we have seen 
that there is but one available way of destroying 
war, namely, through the League and the Court. 

War to-day not only threatens civilization 
with destruction; but, what is far more serious, 
it threatens the human race itself. 

Civilization is the product of hundreds of 
years, but the race is the product of millions. 
Shall medical experts continue to select and send 
to slaughter the strongest, bravest, and most 
intelligent young men? ‘To do so would cut 
the chain of human evolution and throw man 
back an appreciable distance toward his ape- 
like forefathers. A thousand years hence the 
British race will lack a certain degree of strength, 
which it lost in 1914 through the death of the 
famous “first hundred thousand” of England’s 
best stock. Had they lived, that hundred thou- 
sand would have contributed to millions of de- 
scendants in future centuries. 

For nineteen centuries we have tried individ- 
ualistic Christianity without a League of Na- 
tions. But in the last century Christian Europe 
has had forty wars ending with the World War, 

» 97 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


the most terrible in all history. Why not at 
last try Christianity between nations as well as 
between individuals? That is the object of the 
Court and the League. 


Conclusions 


We. have now seen six reasons of national 
self-interest why America should lend her sup- 
port to the Court and the League. 

To fix these in our memory let us enumerate 
them again: 

First, experience with the League is favor- 
able. Second, our own traditions are favorable. 
Third, we ought to have a voice in world affairs. 
Fourth, we ought to help make Europe once 
more a good customer and a paying debtor. 
Fifth, we ought to help stop competition in 
armaments. Sixth, we ought to help stop war. 


98 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


Ce ae ans 
int WEE) ae 





V 
DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


The League Confused With the Treaty of 
Versailles 


We have considered six selfish reasons for 
joining the League and Court. Are there any 
selfish reasons against joining? Not a single 
valid reason! All the alleged reasons are either 
excusable misunderstandings or inexcusable mis- 
representations. 

Some of the objections which had great weight 
with German-Americans and other special groups 
in 1919 and 1920 arose through confusing the 
League of Nations with the Treaty of Versailles, 
especially its reparation provisions. But now, 
whether for good or for ill, the two have been 
separated. We ourselves have made a separate 
peace with Germany so that when we do join 
the League it will be as a neutral nation, as 

101 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Holland and others did, without subscribing to 
the Treaty of Versailles. In fact, those who 
wish* to revise the Treaty of Versailles ought 
to hasten, not retard, our joining the League; 
for the best chance of remedying any evils there 
may be in the Treaty now lies in the League. 
The Dawes’ plan partially provides for so util- 
izing the League. 

Again, as has already been shown, our join- 
ing the League would automatically remove, or 
at least reduce, the one great obstacle which has 
so long stood in the way of reducing the repara- 
tion bill—the French fear of a recovered Ger- 
many. 

Again, the League does not “stereotype the 
boundaries” of European nations. It merely 
provides against changing them by the particu- 
lar method of “external aggression,” otherwise 
known as “War.” It can change, and has al- 
ready changed, some boundaries by juster 
methods. 

As pointed out in Chapter III, it was thanks 
to the League that Germany’s ally, Austria, has 
been put on her feet. Such a role of the League 

102 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


was foreseen at the outset. In the covering let- 
ter to Germany by which the allies transmitted 
the Treaty of Versailles the League was cited 
as the means of possible changes in the Treaty. 
America, not having ratified the Treaty, is in 
an especially strong position to secure its re- 
vision, provided we join the League. It is a 
ghastly joke that German-Americans have been 
hoodwinked into opposing the League when it 
offers the most practicable peaceful means of 
securing the one thing they most desire, a re- 
vision of the Treaty. 


Would the League Take Our Soldiers Abroad? 


Every judicial authority who has spoken on 
the subject, like Chief Justice Taft, Justice 
Clarke, and former Attorney-General Wicker- 
sham, agrees that the League is not a superstate, 
can not impair the sovereignty of its members, 
can not command its members, can not “order” 
our soldier boys abroad. Indeed, a simple read- 
ing of the League Covenant ought to have pre- 
vented any one from being taken in by such 
preposterous misrepresentations by the anti- 

103 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


League propagandists, while, of course, over four 
years’ actual experience affords no grounds for 
them whatsoever. 

There is, to be sure, the very remote possi- 
bility of military force being used to check some 
future Kaiser, but the utmost the League can 
do is to ‘“‘advise” the use of such force, not to 
compel its use. Each nation will have to decide 
for itself what it ought to do, to carry out its 
obligations. Moreover, according to the draft 
treaty for mutual protection and disarmament 
recently worked out by the League, the world 
would be “zoned” so that, in principle, only Eu- 
ropean nations would even be advised to use 
military force in Europe, Asiatic nations in 
Asia, African in Africa, and American in 
America. 

But the main point is that the League de- 
creases, not increases, the chances that military 
force will be necessary. Be it noted that when, 
in the World War, we did send our soldier boys 
abroad there was no League. In fact, it was 
‘because there was no League. As Lord Grey 
has said, had there been a League in 1914, there 

104 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


would have been no war. Lord Grey tried 
| vainly to get an international conference before 
the nations mobilized. With the League in ex- 
istence a conference could have been assembled 
within three days. The Kaiser would have 
known in advance the hopelessness of trying to 
do what he did. Article X would have served 
notice on him, that if he invaded Belgium, he 
would have to reckon with the whole world as 
a foe, just as the Monroe Doctrine served no- 
tice on him of Uncle Sam’s opposition in Roose- 
velt’s administration, in the case of his threat- 
ened invasion of Venezuela. For over a century 
we have never had to fire a gun in support of 
the Monroe Doctrine, just because Europe be- 
lieved we were ready to do so. 


The Monroe Doctrine 


Among the most laughable of the supposed 
objections to the League was the claim that it 
interfered with the Monroe Doctrine. Both 
President Wilson and ex-President Taft pointed 
out that, on the contrary, it extended that doc- 
trine to the whole world. Nevertheless to quiet 

105 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


foolish fears, Mr. Wilson, at Mr. Taft’s sugges- 
tion, had a special disclaimer inserted in the final 
draft. of the League Covenant. This, as was 
intended, took the wind out of the sails of the 
faultfinders. But they then attacked Article X, 
quite oblivious of the humor of so doing, for 
Article X zs the Monroe Doctrine extended to 
the whole world! The Monroe Doctrine is that 
America undertakes to respect and preserve, as 
against European aggression, the territorial in- 
tegrity and existing political independence of all 
Central and South American States. Article X 
reads, ‘‘The members of the League undertake 
to respect and preserve as against external ag- 
gression the territorial integrity and existing 
political independence of all members of the 
League.” 

Here again the League turns out to be not 
against American tradition, but in strict accord- 
ance therewith. 


The Six British Votes 


Perhaps the most potent argument against 
our joining the League was the “six votes” argu- 
106 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


ment that Great Britain has six votes to our 
one, and could “‘outvote” us. There are at least 
five answers to this ridiculous claim, any one of 
which is conclusive: 

(1) Were there any real danger of being out- 
voted by Great Britain, no other great nation, 
such as France, would have put her head into 
such a noose. Or, if she had been so foolish, 
she would have taken it out again by giving 
the two years’ notice by which any nation may 
withdraw from the League. 

(2) The real power of the League is in the 
little Council of ten (or eleven if America should 
come in), in which the British Empire has only 
one vote. 

(3) The utmost power which even the League 
can exercise is merely to advise, except when 
two disputing nations specifically and voluntar- 
ily select it as arbiter. And even its advice can 
not be voted except by wnanimous consent. 
Therefore, no nation can “put anything over” 
by outvoting the others; for any member, by 
withholding consent, can block all the other 
members. 

107 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


This third answer not only answers the so- 
called six votes argument, but, as noted earlier, 
reverses it. For if Great Britain, or any other 
nation, is to be suspected of putting something 
over, they are in a better position to do it with 
America out of the League with no vote at all 
than with America in the League with a vote. 

(4) The so-called British votes of her col- 
onies were not “put over” on us by Great Britain, 
but were rather put over on Great Britain by 
the British Colonies. Britain really feared to 
let her colonies have these separate votes lest 
political friction follow and weaken the slender 
ties which hold the colonies to Great Britain. 
This is clear if we but name the colonies: South 
Africa, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 
all of which desire the utmost freedom of opin- 
ion and action and all of which, except possibly 
India, have full power to assert their own be- 
hefs and to forward their own world policies. 

(5) The so-called six votes argument was used 
to prejudice Irish-American voters against a 
“British-controlled” League which would “blast 
the hopes of Ireland” for political independence. 

108 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


This false argument now finds its Nemesis, not 
only in the fact that Ireland has attained her 
independence without any hindrance from the 
League, but also in the fact that Ireland, like 
the other British colonies, immediately sought 
to express that independence by joining the 
League, which she did in September, 1923! So 
now are we to say Great Britain has seven 
votes!! 

An examination of all the alleged “argu- 
ments” against America’s joining the other na- 
tions in their Society, or League, leads to the 
‘strong conviction that those “arguments” con- 
sist entirely of misunderstandings and misrep- 
resentations. Every supposed objection has been 
answered by events. The five years’ record of 
the League alone constitutes a standing contra- 
diction of the claims that it is either a superstate 
or a rope of sand, that it stereotypes existing 
boundaries or the status quo, that it is an in- 
strument for holding Germany down, that it 
impairs sovereignty, that it would take our sol- 
dier boys abroad, that it menaces the Monroe 
Doctrine, and all the rest. 

109 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


The Real Opposition 


We need not impugn the sincerity of all ob- 
jectors to the League. Most have simply been 
misled. The real source of the opposition by 
which the objectors have been misled is, clearly, 
the little band of irreconcilable senators, who, 
for political, personal, and perhaps, in some 
cases, special-interest reasons, were, and still 
~ are, hostile to the League and the Court. In 
1920, they played on the various prejudices of 
hyphenated Americans and of other partizans 
with great success. Now, in 1924, they are still 
opposing even the leaders of their own party, 
and are trying to defeat even the World Court 
proposal of Hughes, Harding, and Coolidge, on 
the false plea that the League has been defi- 
nitely rejected by America, and that the Court 
is related to the League. The real motives be- 
hind the hostility of those men to any form of 
world cooperation by America have perhaps 
not yet been fully revealed—altho evidence is 
accumulating. Be that as it may, their “argu- 
in the light of the last five years, have 
not a single leg to stand on. 

110 


ments,” 


DO REAL OBJECTIONS EXIST? 


We find, then, no substantial objections to our 
joining either the Court or the League, but six 
very substantial reasons for joining—all these 
six of a purely selfish nature. 


111 


a 
Si 


alee fi ene a 
Te Sify ne ‘ 
Pl PUT a a 

Mia ro 





OUR NATIONAL DUTY 





VI 
OUR NATIONAL DUTY 


In the Name of Humanty 


The six reasons thus far given for joining are 
selfish reasons—reasons of national self-inter- 
est—to save us money and to save our own 
skins. But there are at least two reasons of 
a higher kind, reasons of human and national 
duty. 

The very fact that we are strong while Eu- 
rope is weak; the very fact that we are, or think 
we are, safe, while Europe is in peril; the very 
fact that we are relatively rich while Europe is 
poor, imposes upon us a humanitarian respon- 
sibility. Noblesse oblige. The nation which 
virtually returned to China the Boxer indemnity, 
which gave its help to Cuba, which has always 
been the friend of the friendless and the hope 
of the oppressed, the nation which accepted the 

115 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


help of Lafayette, and which laid recently the 
wreath on Lafayette’s tomb as a symbol of its 
gratitude and of its own unselfish spirit in en- 
tering the World War, that nation, America, can 
not longer, in self-respect, abandon Europe to 
her fate. Considering the debt we owe the Allies 
for fighting the World War for three long years 
before we entered it, during which time we were 
making money out of the war, it ill becomes us 
now to abandon them as poor relations or as 
bankrupt concerns. We should help restore Eu- 
rope, not simply for what we can get out of 
Europe, in trade and debt payments, but be- 
cause Europe is our own flesh and blood, prac- 
tically the mother country of all America. We 
owe our very being to her. We can not sit by 
and see her suffer or perish. We must no longer 
play the priest and the Levite and pass by on 
the other side. It is time for us to play the 
good Samaritan. We have loved to think that 
our flag has no selfish stripe in it—nor any 
yellow one—but that it symbolizes the power 
and the will to right wrongs. We have loved to 
point to our record, as in Cuba. 
116 


OUR NATIONAL DUTY 


America Needed 


Some objectors say, at this point, “If the 
League is so good why are we so necessary? 
Can not the other nations make the League 
a success without us?” 

Yes, they can and have. But not in the de- 
gree which our entry would make possible. 
Every nation helps; the bigger, the more. Some 
problems, like disarmament, are scarcely soluble 
unless every important nation participates. 

But the really great need of America is to add 
the most important, tho intangible, element of 
prestige. Both League and Court depend on 
public opinion. The Court has no sheriff except 
public opinion. America’s adhesion would double 
its authority in the minds of men. 

If any one doubts the possibilities of this 
subtle force—public opinion—he merely needs 
to look into the history of our own Supreme 
Court. That august tribunal has no sheriff 
either—as against a recalcitrant State—except 
public opinion. When the force of public opin- 
ion was weak, West Virginia flouted the Supreme 

117 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


Court. So did Pennsylvania. Citizens of Mass- 
achusetts said that New York could never hale 
Massachusetts into the Supreme Court. Con- 
trast that condition of public opinion with to- 
day’s when, recently, Texas and Oklahoma ac- 
cepted as a matter of course the Supreme Court’s 
decision as to their boundary line! Our entry 
into the Court will greatly hasten the day when 
the World Court’s decision will be equally a 
matter of course. 


Our Nattonal Pride 


But even if the Court and the League can 
work out the problem of World Peace without 
us, we having all the benefits but none of the 
responsibilities, do we want to be put in such 
a position? Is it not humiliating that Great 
America, “the land of the free and the home 
of the brave,” after its great record of unselfish- 
ness, should now play the quitter—shirk respon- 
sibility—cower back to the home shelter lest we 
have to do our share in preventing war? Is it 
not mortifying that we alone of all the nations 
ask to have all the benefits and none of the 

118 


OUR NATIONAL DUTY 


responsibilities of keeping the peace? We all 
approve, even the Republican platform, of con- 
tinuing to get the benefits of the humanitarian 
activities of the League, yet shirk all responsi- 
bility. We even let other nations, or private 
individuals, pay the salaries or expenses of the 
American Judge on the World Court, and the 
many other Americans, like General Dawes, 
Norman Davis, Jeremiah Smith, who step into 
the breach which we, or the irreconcilables, 
have left. 
What We Fought For 

Finally, the most sacred reason of all is that 
we are in honor bound to do something to pre- 
vent war. It was on that basis that we entered 
the war and that our soldiers fought. Into their 
ears we whispered that they were fighting a 
war to end war, a war to make the world safe 
for democracy; they believed us and we believed 
ourselves. 

What have we now to show for all of our sac- 
rifice in money and in human life? We know 
why we fought the War of the Revolution. It 
was to get our independence; we formed the 

119 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


United States of America. This result was 
worth all it cost in blood and tears. We know 
also ‘why we fought the Civil War. It was to 
save the Union. We saved it and, at the same 
time, abolished the curse of slavery. These 
results also were worth all they cost in blood 
and tears. In each case we accomplished some- 
thing constructive. What constructive results 
have we to show for the three hundred billion 
dollars and the twenty-five million human lives 
which the greatest war in all history cost? We 
have two things worth while to show for it, a 
— little infant World Court, and a little baby 
League of Nations, neither of which has the 
United States yet helped to grow up. 

Our boys did not fight the war merely for 
national selfishness, to save us money or even to 
save our own skins. They fought it in a high 
spirit of idealism. We all know the story of 
Sergeant York, the great war hero. When first 
taken to the cantonment to train, he refused even 
to go into bayonet practise because the Bible 
says, “Thou shalt not kill.” His Colonel saw 
that there was no use putting him in the guard- 

120 


OUR NATIONAL DUTY 


house, that it was not a case of cowardice, but 
of conscience. After two weeks of daily discus- 
sion, he convinced York that this war was to 
make the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” 
as effective between nations as it is between 
individuals. It was to prevent forever such 
invasions as that of Belgium. Its purpose was 
to make the world safe and to abolish war from 
the earth. When York grasped this idea he 
became one of the greatest fighters the world 
has ever seen. Thousands of our boys fought 
with like idealistic spirit, believing it was their 
privilege to prevent future generations of young 
men from ever having to go through that agony 
again. We should understand why the youth 
of to-day are taking a pledge not to fight again. 
The “Youth Movement” of pacifism is simply 
an abnormal expression of the well justified 
abhorrence of war. It will disappear when we 
do all we can to realize the dream of a warless 
world which we once held up before our soldiers. 


The Supreme Sacrifice 
I was “over there” two years ago. I visited 
the devastated area. I remember standing one 
121 


AMERICA’S INTEREST IN WORLD PEACE 


evening, in the gloaming, in the little American 
cemetery at Belleau Wood, where lie our boys 
who first fell in the great fight, the greatest they 
believed in all history. It was there, if at all, 
we may boast, that we won the war. It was 
there we laid on the last straw that broke the 
camel’s back. Our boys drove back the Germans 
a few miles. The Germans sought then to en- 
trench, believing, from their experience with 
the French, that our boys would entrench also. 
Much to their surprize and dismay, instead of 
entrenching, our boys were upon them the second 
time, and again drove them back a few miles. 
Again they sought to entrench, but again our 
boys pushed them back; and again; until finally 
retreat became a rout. Then the Germans be- 
gan to reflect: “If a few hundred thousand 
young, fresh, vigorous, idealistic American troops 
can fight like that, what is going to happen to 
us when the millions behind them come across 
the sea?” That took the heart out of them— 
that broke their morale; and we know it was 
the break in the German morale which won 
the war. 
122 


OUR NATIONAL DUTY 


As I thought of those noble deeds of our sol- 
diers, my mind turned to Lincoln’s address on 
the battlefield. of Gettysburg, and his appeal 
that “from these honored dead we take increased 
devotion to that great cause for which they gave 
the last full measure of devotion.” As I stood 
awe-struck in the little cemetery I wondered 
whether those white wooden crosses were to be 
our last tribute for such deeds? Do we not owe 
those boys something more than wooden crosses 
in France or stone arches at home? Do we not 
owe them a monument which will not only com- 
-memorate but perpetuate their work, a monu- 
ment which will finish the task which they left 
for us to finish, the task of making this world 
safe for men and women and children of all 
races, climes, and times? Yes; we owe them 
a monument of human brotherhood, a monument 
which we once began, but which still lacks the 
keystone of the arch. In the words, again, of 
Lincoln, ‘“‘Let us here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain.” They kept 
faith with us, and we must keep faith with them. 


123 





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